Lame - The tale of a Time traveller, a Clone and the turnabout of their lives

A girl is sitting by a Window. The massive computerized panel of glass is currently displaying breathtaking scenery from the past. A cottage in the forest. A petite wooden thing, cozy and homey, amidst the sea of lush greens and browns of the trees and colorful whirlwinds of the flowers and fruits.
She sighs longingly, then lays a palm over the screen. It reacts to her touch, as if she touched water tiny circular ripples spread across it, growing larger with the crossed distance, and the picture folds into a much darker, gruesome version of itself.
Now she's looking at a small house, constructed of debris. Instead of a forest, the house is surrounded by others alike, all small ruins of old metal, Styrofoam and various other materials, oozing unnamed dark and suspicious looking liquids. The air is no longer cool and crisp, smelling sweetly of flowers, grass and fresh water. It is a gray soup of smog and toxic gasses, brought to you fresh every day by the massive plants and factories producing the world's new inhabitants. There are hardly any humans left in this world run by computers. They have been replaced by clones, because clones are replaceable. They are cheap to make, and cheaper to hire. The humans mentioned beforehand are their employers. Tycoons, monopolists, people with the money. The powerful few sitting on the thrones of the new world like gods.
The girl sighs and glances at her wrist. There, screaming in black ink inerasably lay engraved a barcode.
The girl is a clone. A clone of a daughter of a very important man who passed away some decades ago. A clone that never ages past 25. A clone that plays a role of a tycoon. A clone that is not to be known about. A clone that is different, but is smart enough not to show it. She is faulty. And she will change her world.

Chapters:

Awakening

Darkness. I've seen nothing but
darkness for as long as I remember. There's nothing else here, in
this world of mine, but darkness. I've grown accustomed to
it.

At first it was unsettling. The
feeling of floating in this void of nothingness was terrifying.
In this place there is nobody but me. No one can reach me. No one
can breach the boundaries of this place and save me. But, why am
I asking questions, as if somebody but me existed? I've never
seen or felt any other presence in this thick, silent and
peaceful darkness. What is a presence anyway? How do you feel it?
How does it feel to feel it? Am I present here? What am I, where
am I?

I've toyed with the questions,
stacking them like building blocks. Rolling them up in each
other, wrapping them around and around until they were just a
cluster of words that had no meaning, because that's what they
are in the first place. Meaningless words and interpunction whose
sense I couldn't grasp despite my efforts. The words hung in the
darkness like Will-o'-the-wisps, hinting, inviting, but never
indicating.

Eventually I grew weary of them.
The interest faded alongside the enthusiasm, and my mind grew
silent. I idled there in the endless darkness, and let it take
over. I felt it creep inside every nook of my being (whatever
that is), rooting itself in my very core (again, I can only have
an idea of what this might mean). It crept and poured and tangled
itself all around me with its soft, ghastly tentacles, engulfing
me and suffocating me until there was nothing but a spark of me
left. A tiny flicker of thought indicating that once there was
something more here, but it gave into the darkness. It gave up
and the darkness swallowed it at the first sign of
weakness.

And so when I thought that I was
finally going to disappear, the light came. A light so bright
that it stung my eyes (Eyes? What are those?), and I had to blink
rapidly to prevent them from tearing up (Blink? Tears? Where are
all of these words coming from?!). I found myself plunging
towards it, stretching and twisting myself in order to grasp it.
Gasping to breathe it in like a drowning man longing for air. And
the warmth came too, as opposed to the neutral chill of the
darkness. My skin shivered as the warm light engulfed it,
caressing every bit of my body with its gentle fingers. There was
a pulling sensation, as if being picked up by large careful hands
ready to embrace you and...

I bolted upright into a sitting
position, coughing uncontrollably. The surface underneath me was
hard and I no longer felt warm and cosy. The chilly air bit my
naked body and I wrapped my arms around myself to warm up a bit.
I raised my head, eyes darting rapidly form side to side, but I
couldn't make anything out. The whole sight was a blur of whites
and greys, and somewhere in all of it, there was a hint of
movement.

Then there was a pat on my back,
and two hands started slowly pushing me back onto the bed. I
resisted, tensing my muscles and pushing back against the force
of the hands, but instantly another, much larger and less gentle
pair of hands replaced them and forced me down with ease. A voice
spoke, light and crisp, jingling like an orchestra of tiny bells.
I strained my ears and brain, but couldn't make out what it said.
The gibberish kept on until a word started forming in my head.
Just then I realised that it wasn't a mere word, but a
name.

"Rayne." It chimed.

"Rayne."

I opened my mouth, and let an odd
unarticulated voice in response. "Rayne". That's my name. But how
does that person know this? How do I know this?

"Good.", the voice continued. "It
seems that it didn't suffer any brain damage during the awakening
period."

I heard two more voices. One was
low and somewhat rough, the other also low, but fluent and
velvety. They murmured something that I couldn't comprehend. In
the meantime, my vision started to clear, and I saw the source of
what I thought was divine light. I was staring at a reflector of
an OR, or something, its brightness still hurting my eyes. I
tried to move again, but my body remained flat against the
bed.

Footsteps clacked over the floor,
softly at first, but grew louder as the person neared me. She
leaned over me, her bright purple eyes staring right into mine.
She smiled, revealing a set of perfect pearly whites. Her hair,
drawn back carefully in a tight ponytail was such a pale blond
that it looked almost silver. It was as if her eyes and lush pink
lips were the only things on her whole appearance that held any
colour.

"Hello Rayne, nice to meet you."
Her smile was broad and welcoming, but I couldn't help doubting
its sincerity. I opened my mouth again, forcing air out of my
lungs and through my vocal chords, letting out another
meaningless set of sounds. She smiled understandingly.

"Have patience Miss Craven, all in
due time. Let your brain wake up first. After all, not even
Asterisk was built in a day, despite what its inhabitants like to
say." I kept staring at her in confusion as she chuckled and
looked the other way, waving her hand beckoningly as two other
pairs of footsteps could be heard, approaching the bed
slowly.

I must admit that I didn't feel at
all comfortable as two men popped into my range of sight.
Instantly I became conscious of the fact that I was naked, and
that my whole body was exposed for them to see. I felt a surge of
blood to my face, and instantly felt ridiculous for it because
after all, they appear to have been in the room for quite some
time. Probably even before I'd woken up. They regarded me
carefully, but their stare was weird. It was as if they weren't
looking at a person, but an object. I felt chills rolling down my
spine. The smaller one had raven black hair, and a very pale blue
eye. I say eye because the other one was obscured by his fringe
and possibly something underneath it, because it wasn't visible
at all. His stare was like icy daggers, measuring and precise. It
would make me squirm, were I able to move my body. The other one
was unbelievably tall. The first man wasn't a shorty, but this
person made him seem like one. His hair was a creamy hazelnut
colour, and his eyes were amber, though more on the red side than
the brown. The first thing I thought of when I saw him was
"Autumn", even though I'm not supposed to know what it is or what
it looks like, since I've never witnessed it. His stare was light
on the ice, but not quite warm either. It was neutral. As if he
was looking at an anatomy model. He ruffled his hair and looked
at the smiling woman.

"Man, it's sort of eerie how they
all look absolutely the same when the wake up. They all look at
you with those wild, bewildered eyes until you put them through
"Education" and suck the last hint of uniqueness out of
them."

For a brief moment something
gleamed in his eyes, but it was gone in the other. He frowned and
looked a little disgusted, then pushed himself away from the
table and I heard him walk away. In the distance a door slammed
shut. Icy Eyes glanced after him lazily then back at the
woman.

"Uniqueness is not what they were
made for anyway." He shrugged, and the woman looked at me, her
gaze heavy with pity.

"She's such an adorable little
thing. I wish we could keep a "Raw" one, but it would raise too
much suspicion." She sighed heavily.

"Get a grip on yourself Rin." He
murmured, "What would you do with a "Raw" anyway? You know full
well that we're in no-"

"Yeah, yeah. You could have let me
dream at least a little..." She pouted and pursed her lips,
"You're so cruel Nate."

The man called Nate smiled a little
then put an arm around her: "Come on, we have to start the
"Education" process soon. Get it ready."

"You know I don't like it when you
call them an "it" Nathan, at least while they're still "Raw"."
She scowled and pushed his hand away. She disappeared, and he
watched her go. He cast a final glance at me, then shook his head
and left. The door slammed behind him and I was left alone to
myself again, staring at the light above my head.